I like Toyota Prius.
In the fall of 2005, I bought my Prius brand new car from a dealer in MI Watford.
This is my only car until the loan is paid off, and even then I am not in a hurry to sell or replace it.
Then the hybrid battery is dead.
Before that, however, Prius was a dream car.
This is a compact car that looks small from the outside, but the interior and cargo space look spacious.
You won't think it's "sporty" in itself, but between you and me it has some zippers.
Over the past eight years, we 've been driving more than 100,000 miles on the car, and the only maintenance we really need to do is oil change, brakes and tires. The Prius is—simply put—
A great car.
Fully disclosed, I have replaced 2005 Prius . . . . . .
With adult children who have jobs and young children who have extra-curricular activities in every corner of the county, we find that we need a third car.
We gave 2005 Prius to our eldest son and bought a "new" (actually used) 2011 Toyota Prius to replace it.
Now I have an updated, better Prius with an electric skylight and a stereo speaker that will allow me to play music from my smartphone via a Bluetooth or USB connection. But, I digress.
My son received some kind of warning light a few months ago.
He should have changed the oil a long time ago, so I told him to start there and the warning light went away once he had done the change. Problem solved.
Is the problem solved?
He was very concerned about the information Prius provided on the display and said he noticed that the battery did not appear to be charging overnight.
The car is driving fine, but the battery runs out every morning when he starts it.
A few weeks later, the dashboard was lit like a Christmas tree with a bunch of warning lights hanging on it. Yikes!
We drove to a nearby auto repair shop that we trusted.
The mechanics there are friendly, honest and good at what they do.
$120 diagnostic fee, five hours later we got the message that they found the horrible p080 error code: replacing the hybrid battery pack.
Cost of installing a new hybrid battery pack? $4,033!
According to Kelly's Blue Book, the car is only worth about $7500 on the street and our mechanic wants us to pay more than half the cost to keep it running.
I called the Toyota dealer to see what my options were.
After some discussion, I asked Toyota services to agree to complete the work for less than $3,300.
Sure, it's much better than $4,033, but still a lot more than my son's money to fix the car, investing 9-
Old cars over 100,000 miles.
Of course, if the hybrid battery pack fails or fails, the value of Prius will be greatly reduced if we try to sell or trade, any vehicle we can buy with the same money could be old and could be more prone to problems than just keeping Prius.
Save PriusI did some research online and found other Prius owners posts on the forum about renovating batteries and replacing individual batteries.
You can go to eBay.
Find used and refurbished batteries available.
The problem is to find a local mechanic who is willing to do so, who also has the knowledge and skills to exchange.
Our mechanic refuses to deal with the refurbished parts and will only agree to the installation if I buy a brand new battery.
When I found out about the Prius battery repair company in Houston (now called home hybrid), I was thinking about buying a refurbished battery online and trying to install it myself.
Their website is full of useful information about the Prius hybrid battery pack, who will replace your failed hybrid battery pack with a refurbished battery pack for $800. Total.
That's how much my mechanic and Toyota dealership would like to charge for my labor, and the Prius battery repair company in Houston came to my house for repairs in my driveway.
The refurbished battery is expected to travel an extra 50,000 to 70,000 miles, with one of Houston's Prius batteries-year warranty.
I arranged a time to come to my house for Prius battery repair in Houston. The mechanic—
Who happens to be the boss of the company-
Very polite to show up on time.
He completed the work of removing the faulty hybrid battery pack and installed the "new" refurbished battery pack in about an hour and a half.
Just like Prius is fully operational again, it only costs Part 5 of our initial offer.
Breaking the math looking at numbers seems like a nobrainer.
Even if the refurbished battery actually only lasts for one year during the warranty period, it doesn't matter.
For a reliable car, the $800 fell to $67 a month.
Try to find a reliable car for $67 a month.
Plus, that $800 means my son will get better as well. than-
He will travel an average of 10,000 miles that year.
According to the average price of nearby gas, he will also save about $350 in gas, so the net investment is only about $450.
This makes repair costs less than $40 a month, even if the refurbished battery runs out of power the day after the full warranty period.
Now, let's say it actually travels 50,000 to 70,000 miles.
We split the difference by 60,000.
It's about six years, $800 in repair.
Within 60,000 miles, he will also save more than $800 in gas, so repairing Prius is basically free compared to going out and replacing Prius with another car.
As it goes, fontai doesn't want to steal business from the Prius battery repair company in Houston, but this is indeed the service Toyota should provide.
Toyota sold more than 100,000 Prii units in the 2005 model year alone in the United States, which has since been available every year.
The Prius hybrid battery pack in 2004 and beyond only takes eight or 100,000 miles (10 or 150,000 miles in states that adopt stricter California emission control standards ), this means there are thousands of Prii out of warranty on the street and a hybrid battery pack needs to be replaced.
The only person who needs to pay out of pocket to replace the hybrid battery pack due to the warranty is a relatively older car customer who already has over 100,000 or 150,000 miles of mileage.
No one with the right mind will pay Toyota half the value of their used car to replace the hybrid battery pack.
The reality is that there are 28 sep arate batteries in the hybrid battery pack.
When the unit starts to fail, only a few single units are bad.
Prius battery repair in Houston and Toyota can replace the bad hybrid battery pack with refurbished batteries if they want to, to get customers back on the road.
Then, determine which batteries are bad, simply replace the bad ones, re-regulate the batteries and sell them to the next customer.
On the street, only about $25 per cell.
If there are four bad batteries that need to be replaced, it only costs about $100, plus the time to replace the battery pack, you can turn around and sell them at a profit of $700.
I think the cost of the battery is lower for Toyota and there are other costs to consider, like paying the mechanic to replace the battery, but overall it's not a bad business model.
Instead of telling customers to alienate them for $3,000
Also, in order to fix the Prius they like, Toyota should offer refurbished batteries to these customers for $800.
With thousands of Prii needing to replace the hybrid battery pack each year, we are talking about tens of millions of dollars in revenue from the Toyota service.
However, at the same time, if you are in Texas, your Prius needs to replace the hybrid battery pack and call home hybrid (formerly a Prius battery repair in Houston ).
You won't regret it.